Sanctify
by Jessa4865
Summary: Elliot reflects on how things have changed. EO COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

Sanctify  
Jezyk  
Spoilers: Through season 8  
Disclaimer: Not mine, entertainment only, yadda yadda yadda…  
EO consider yourself warned.

Part One

He could feel her. Her hands moving across his bare chest. Her weight settling across his hips as she straddled him. Her breasts in his hands as he reached up to cup them. Her body shifting over his as she leaned down to kiss him. Her teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip as she silently pleaded for entrance. Her tongue gliding over his own. Her hair under his fingers as his hand guided her head closer to his.

With an angry, frustrated sigh, Elliot rolled over to face the wall. He cursed his fate. His wife lay sleeping beside him, completely ignorant of his plight. He knew he could roll in the other direction, nudge her awake and resolve the most primal of urges in his body without a single question from her. But it felt wrong, dirty, dishonest. Because it wasn't Kathy in his fantasy.

So he clenched his jaw and demanded that his body not respond to the images that he couldn't keep out of his mind.

Ten minutes later he was in the kitchen, splashing cold water on his face since the shower would wake everyone in the house. He turned around to lean his weight against the counter and stared around the kitchen. His kitchen. He could still remember the way the house looked through his young eyes, when Maureen and Kathleen were still tiny enough for Kathy to hold both of them at once. He remembered the gleam in his wife's eyes as they looked around the house, the joy in her voice when she fantasized about getting a bigger couch and a new dining room set. He remembered the pride he felt when he was able to tell her their loan had been approved, that the house they wanted was going to be theirs. But mostly he remembered in vivid detail how desperately he'd wanted back in when Kathy had asked him to leave the house behind him.

He didn't like to lose. At least, that was what Olivia had announced one night. They'd gathered at Fin's place, playing a few rounds of poker and drinking beer and relaxing. But Olivia could bluff like a pro and had cleaned everyone out. He'd declared she was a cheater and she'd declared he didn't like to lose. He knew she was right. He didn't like to lose. So he'd managed to win the bigger hand - he'd gotten his family back.

But he didn't feel like he'd won anything.

There were marks on the doorway indicating the various ages and heights of the four children who'd long ago refused to stand for the age-old tradition. There were scores in the floor from some of those same four children insisting on wearing skates and cleats and various sporting equipment when they tramped in from the garage. The baby latches were still on the cabinets - the ones he never removed in his pathetic attempt to keep the kids from growing up. His hand reached out of its own accord and rubbed the rounded edge of the counter, the spot he'd sanded from a sharp corner in a fit of rage after his son had hit his head while wearing those same skates he wasn't supposed to wear in the house.

Papers from various schools littered the front of the refrigerator, mostly waiting for his wife's neat signature. Not his own, never his own. They weren't used to him being back. He still caught the startled looks on their faces on those nights he made it home before everyone was in bed. He couldn't say he didn't have the same startled look on his face when he opened the door and realized he didn't live alone anymore.

His eyes fell on the calendar tacked to the cork board. Details of games and lessons and dances filled up the days - more evidence of the life that existed outside the SVU that he rarely witnessed. He noticed the marking for Tuesday, his wife's handwriting reminding everyone who cared that she had a hair appointment.

He groaned, the simple idea sending his mind back to where he didn't want it. He forced himself to think about Kathy, to try to muster up some of the tenderness that he used to feel when he thought of her. All he could think of was how her hair reminded him of straw - dry and course and yellow. Whenever they'd argued about money, he'd always brought up the amount she spent at the hair salon. She'd always taken the opportunity to try to end the fight by reminding him that he liked blondes. He'd never argued because he'd really never thought about it. Kathy had been his first crush, his first girlfriend, his first love, his first everything. So if his wife was blonde, he obviously had a thing for blondes, he guessed.

He'd never complained about the feel of her hair. He honestly hadn't known any better. The only hair he'd ever run his fingers through was his own and that of his family. He assumed that all children had soft hair and somehow through aging, it turned course like Kathy's. It wasn't that he'd really ever put that much thought into the subject. He'd loved his wife, regardless of the texture of her hair.

When that had changed, he really didn't know.

When he'd realized it, however, that was an entirely different matter.

And sadly, it all came back to the hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

He closed his eyes, gripped the counter hard, and swore his body was not going to respond again to the memory he could feel surfacing. It was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So stupid, in fact, that if he ever told anyone what it was that had him so hot and bothered they'd laugh themselves to death.

Because really, the sensation of his partner's hair brushing against his face was hardly the sort of thing a man usually fantasized about.

It was all her fault. All her fault that he couldn't sleep. All her fault that he couldn't get her out of his head. All her fault that the idea of touching her consumed every moment of his life. All her fault that he'd fallen out of love with his wife just as he'd gotten her back. Ok, so maybe it wasn't her fault that he didn't love Kathy, but it was her fault that he'd realized he didn't love Kathy, and that was just as bad.

He immediately felt guilty. It wasn't Olivia's fault that he couldn't control his libido. It was all his own. He was sure few men were staring fifty in the face only ever having known the touch of one woman. And those that were, he was completely convinced, loved that one woman with everything they had in them.

He'd always been a good husband, as good as he could be with his job. He'd always been a good father, with the same qualifier. He'd always tried his best with what he had and he thought he'd done pretty damn good considering his detached mother and abusive father. He figured his kids at least had a shot at being good parents, which to him meant that he'd done his job.

So now that he was on the wrong side of life with a stressful job that exhausted him and kids who didn't appreciate him and a wife he didn't love, he couldn't deny himself the comfort of fantasy. He knew that was all it would ever be, because even though he knew he was a good man with decent looks and a hard body, Olivia Benson was painfully out of his league.

He let out the breath he was holding and let the memory, the pathetic, disgraceful excuse for a fantasy, come back. They'd been at work, searching for leads on a case, when he'd found something on a website that he thought might help. He'd called to her, nodding his head toward his screen in an invitation. She walked around the desks to see, leaning down to get a better look. In the unrelenting analysis he later did of the moment, he decided that she wasn't any closer than she ever would have been, that perhaps she simply forgot how long her hair had grown. He also knew he was mostly to blame because he'd leaned in unconsciously to steal a breath of her perfume. As she read the page, the hair that had been caught on her shoulder lost its battle with gravity, slowly slipping forward until it fell completely. Right across his cheek.

He hadn't even thought about it. Instinct reached up, tucking her hair back behind her ear so that he could stop the tickling sensation. Shock froze his hand there, pressing lightly against her hair. Her hair was so soft, as soft as a baby's. It was all he could do not to pull his fingers through it and marvel at it. Apparently not all women had straw-like hair. Some women had thick, silky hair that begged to be caressed. The notion was so unexpected that he couldn't move for a moment. For a long enough moment that Olivia turned to look at him. She smiled softly and apologized, shifting to her right so as not to bother him with her hair while she continued to read. And that was just what she did, turned right back to work and paid no attention to her partner's world crashing down around him.

Olivia's hair was soft. That was all it took for him to realize that he didn't love Kathy. That was all it took for dreams of Olivia to invade his mind. That was all it took for him to realize that her skin was probably as soft as her hair. That was all it took for him to admit, if only to himself, that he desperately wanted to touch the rest of her and find out

And that was all it took for him to realize the most likely reason that he didn't love his wife anymore was because he was in love with his partner.


	3. Chapter 3

Part Three

His body reacted just as he'd known it would. But more than the physical desperation for her touch, there was an emotional drive as well. He wanted to see her. He wanted to be near her. He wanted to tell her, as he had nearly done those months ago in the dark car, that she wasn't really alone, that she would never be alone. But he hadn't said it then for the same reason he knew he'd never say it. Because he was married. Because it was wrong. Because it was inappropriate. Because she might know how he felt and that might scare her away.

He wasn't thinking straight as he ducked into the laundry room, pulling on the first items of his that he found. He eased open the squeaky door to the garage and was on his way to see her before he could talk himself out of it. He had no idea what he was going to say to her, no idea how he could explain to his partner what prompted him to appear at her door in the middle of the night, no idea what he would say if she asked.

A few minutes later and he was facing his sleepy, disheveled partner. After a quick study of his bizarre clothing, her only inquiry was if he'd had a fight with Kathy. He wasn't a liar, so he simply shook his head. The late hour and the unexpected visit combined to shut down her normally inquisitive nature. She invited him in and retrieved a blanket and pillow for him to make up the couch.

He said nothing as she padded back to her bedroom. He could only stare at the haphazardly folded blanket and know that it wouldn't do. He had no plans to accost her, to force a discussion on her at that hour, but sleeping in her living room was no better than sleeping in his own bed. It may as well have been a million miles away from her.

And that was precisely what he'd been trying to avoid.

He waited a long time, rationalizing that she'd have time to fall back to sleep and therefore would be more agreeable to anything he suggested. He knew it was a gamble because in all their years of being partners, the only consistent quality Olivia ever exhibited when she was tired was irritability. Still, he waited, listening to the silence of her apartment, feeling the racing of his heart at the thought of what he was going to do.

When he decided enough time had passed, he followed her path to the bedroom, pushing through the door she'd left half open. She was lying on her side, half curled into the fetal position, and facing away from the door. It seemed as much of an invitation as he could have hoped for. He made his way across the room, pulling back the blankets that smelled of her and sliding into the place beside her, the place he firmly believed was meant for him. His movements had no effect on her. He told himself that was because, even in sleep, she recognized and trusted him. He nestled up against her, unable to deny how natural the unfamiliar movement felt. His arm found her waist and his hand splayed across her stomach. He used that leverage to pull her back, pressing her against him.

It was even more unbelievably perfect in reality than the fantasy had been and he sighed happily as he nuzzled her neck. Her hair, the same incredibly soft hair that had started the whole thing, felt like heaven on his face.

He heard her voice, soft and unsure, whispering the nickname that had always seemed intimate coming from her lips. He shushed her, told her to go back to sleep. It was a test, he realized, to see if she really trusted him as completely as he hoped. If she didn't, he knew she wasn't about to take his suggestion. If he was wrong, she would get up, demand an explanation, throw him out, maybe hold his actions against him forever. But if she trusted him, if she felt the same thing he did, she wouldn't spoil the moment, she would wait until morning to question him.

There was a long, terrifying period of stillness while he anticipated just how hard she would hit him.

And then her hand grasped his and washed away all the fear.

finis


End file.
